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Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

From my experience in Kuwait ^^^this would be the optimum set up.
Also, I don't know the exact location of the OP in Kuwait but the closer he could get to the Gulf the better.
Cooler temps near the Persian Gulf.
Out in the desert, I don't see bees having a chance.
120 degree heat and when the wind blows it doesn't cool. It has more like a hairdryer effect.
You can get cooler by getting out of the wind.
Odd, I know.
...and it can get real cold at night and during the winter.
I just don't see bees thriving there. Maybe if the OP got an Egyptian strain, but still...
My recommendation would be to move.

Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

I have European bees in the hives.
Over 99% of land area in Kuwait is desert/ semi-desert. There are frequent sandstorms, along with high temperatures.
So potentially I do not have many places to move around.

Kuwait has a few green areas where there are sufficient underground lakes. My hives are located in a green area.

Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

We are beekeepers from Australia and this summer has been one our hottest for a long time.The temperature were our bees are in January was 50C in the shade.Bee Hives that we left a box of honey on was good but Bee Hives with a empty honey box on suffered the most.
And in those temperatures you need to have water with in 100 metres or so.

Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

The bees are going to "swamp cool" the inside of the hive. I think all you can really do is try to cool the outside. First, of course, keep it in the shade and provide the bees water. But then you could set up some way to keep the outside of the hive moist. Maybe something on top that holds some water to evaporate it there. Maybe something porous on the sides that you can keep moist. If you had some kind of tub on top that had a slow leak on all four sides that would leak down on some cloth on the sides, you could keep evaporative cooling on the top and four sides... then you would just have to fill the tub every morning.

Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

I think the combination of full shade/cover (Could just be posts, frame, and a tarp), water source for bees very close by... And...
Michael Bush's "Bee swamp cooler".....

An elevated water tank or pressure water supply (pump) hooked to "Soaker hose" (irrigation pipe / a type of garden hose perforated to slowly water plants) and wet burlap / cloth laid on the hives. Think about it as if setting up an irrigation system for plants, with 450 plant sites (top of each hive) to water. Not really that complex and cheap/readily available parts.

Or manually dunk the cloth /burlap in water and put on hives every day. Would not take too long if all hives are in the same yard?

If it works to hose down a semi load of bees to keep them from overheating while truck is stopped, I don't see why it wouldn't work for this.

Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

Dear Api friend,
to protect your bees in the summer you need to do simple things like covering the bees from three sides with green rocoleen which is used for gardening where the room like place should be facing the south with the open side and add to that covering of palm tree leafs with circulating water that drips from top to bottom on the sides to create an air conditioned aria this will help a lot in the summer.
If you need more help you can call me at 99850825
Nael AlSaif

Re: Survival of bees in Kuwait

Or a drip line.

I have seen cooling where portion of the sunny side of the building was painted black, with a false wall. The wall was really a chimney with opening on bottom inside, and on top, above roof line. Then an opening on the opposite side of the building, an other opening was on the bottom about the same size. There was a drip line just outside of the opening. The idea is that the warm air rising in the chimney sucks the air through the building from the other side, and pulls in the cooling evaporating drips.

I think it is called a "solar chimney", but it is what you described as a "swamp cooling". I think this might be possible to implement per hive...